Men

Breaking News: Men Discover Tampons Can Absorb Blood

Disposable menstrual products, DIY, Men

Photo by henteaser // CC 2.0

Last week at The Art of Manliness, a contributor wrote a post about numerous possible wilderness survival uses of tampons. The post was picked up by the popular site, Boing Boing, and the commenters in both sites added more uses, as well uses for disposable maxi pads (although some contributors seem uncertain of the difference). Many creative uses for disposable femcare products were suggested, and while I can’t personally vouch for (or against) any of them, I offer this post as Public Service Announcement to correct some of the misinformation about tampons and pads that those uses presume.

The use of an opened tampon or a maxi pad for a bandage probably seems obvious to re:Cycling readers, as many are familiar with the history of Kotex, developed when World War I nurses discovered that the cotton cellulose they were using on wounded soldiers was highly absorbent. (The phrase ko-tex stands for cotton texture.) But as a few sharp readers of The Art of Manliness are aware, it has been decades since maxi-pads or tampons of any brand were made of cotton (except, obviously, the all-cotton types sold in health food stores). Pads are made from mostly from wood cellulose fibers, with plastic outer layers made of polypropylene or polyethylene. Some of the newer, improved maxi-pads feature synthetic gels designed to draw blood away from the body — not exactly a feature you’d want in a bandage, when you’re trying to stanch the flow of blood and promote clotting. If you’re bleeding heavily, you’re probably better off tearing off your t-shirt and pressing it against the wound. Tampons are also made of wood cellulose, often with a core of viscose fiber. Viscose fiber is rayon, created by treating cellulose with sodium hydroxide and carbon disulfide.

And although most brands are individually wrapped these days, neither tampons nor pads are sterile. Nor are they produced in sterile conditions. I’d be very leery of using a tampon as a water filter. Surely there are safer, equally portable, emergency filters one could pack in a wilderness survival kit.

Many of the other emergency uses of tampons involved using the fluffy wood pulp as kindling, or otherwise setting them on fire. Now there’s a use I can get behind!

“When it comes to their balls, guys just don’t seem to have any”

Advertising, anatomy, Birth Control, Men

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPk5mtLMv94

I’ve spent so many years as a professor of Women’s Studies telling students that feminism is about equality, and that being pro-woman doesn’t mean being anti-men. I thought perhaps we’d moved past that 1990s meme of seeing everything that is for women as male-bashing, but here we go again.

The latest marketing strategy of Essure, a permanent birth control method for women that destroys the Fallopian tubes, is to appeal to men’s fear of vasectomy: “because you can only wait so long for him to man up”.

Le sigh.

Dating the men of Stayfree

Advertising, Disposable menstrual products, Humor, Internet, Media

Via Tracy Clark-Flory at Broadsheet, I learned of this new internet campaign from Stayfree.


At last, my girlish fantasies realized! I have always dreamed of a man who would have dinner almost ready when I got home, and then mansplain the intricacies of feminine hygiene products while the risotto simmered.

Except I grew up in the 1970s, so my fantasy man shaved his face, not his chest, before our date.

[See also A date with Ryan and A date with Trevor.]

A Pill for Men – Still Five Years Away

Birth Control, Internet, Media, New Research
mouse2

Photo by Flickr user be_khe | CC 3.0

The Internet, especially the feminist blogosphere, is all abuzz this week with the promise of a new contraceptive pill for men within the next five years. But researchers always say a pill for men is just five years away, according to University of Washington medical professor John K. Amory.

The spark of new hope stems from an interview with Professor Haim Breitbart of Israel’s Bar-Ilan University, published June 28 in London’s Telegraph. Breitbart promises a monthly pill, free of side effects, for men. The Telegraph says human trials are scheduled to begin next year.

How does this proposed pill work? The answer lies in a breakthrough paper Breitbart published four years ago, in which he and his colleagues announced a new discovery about how sperm cells create new proteins after ejaculation, while hanging around in the uterus before fertilization can take place. Breitbart believes that if this protein production process can be derailed, conception can be prevented without hormones. He calls his chemical concoction the Bright Pill (a twist on his name).

So far, the prototype works very well, inducing temporary sterility for one to three months at time, depending on dosage. In mice, that is. Breitbart believes there are no side effects, telling a reporter for an Israeli news service,

The mice behaved nicely. They ate and had sex; they were laughing, and everything, so all I can say is that we couldn’t see any behavioral side-effects–all their sex behavior was retained, which is a very important consideration for human men.

Well, then. If the mice were laughing and still having sex, then it must be all right. (Mice laugh? How can you tell?) I’m certainly willing to give Breitbart the benefit of the doubt on this one and believe that so far, the Bright Pill is very effective for male mice.

But we’re a long way from the jubilation seen in some corners of the Internet over this news. Not only does effectiveness in mice not guarantee effectiveness in humans, Breitbart and his research associate, Dr. Yael Gur, plan to continue rodent testing for at least another year before moving on to test the pill on primates. Then come three phases of clinical trials in humans, after lab and animal testing, to assure the drug’s safety and efficacy before developers can apply for U.S. approval (other countries have similar processes). Funding is needed for this lengthy process, and since there’s presently no drug company behind the project, Breitbart and Gur are seeking investors.

So even if a Pill for men is five years away, would men use it? Depending on the study and the country, anywhere between 14 percent and 71 percent of men say they would. What do you think, re:Cycling readers? If you’re male and heterosexual, would you take Brietbart’s “Bright Pill”? If you’re a woman who has sex with men, would you want your partner to take it?

Cross-posted at Ms. Magazine Blog

I’d Rather Hold Your Bike than Your Tampons

Disposable menstrual products, Menstruation


Is it wrong that I like this ad because it makes men look foolish for fearing tampons? It’s not that I mean to endorse mocking men as a class, it’s just that unlike the Kotex “Ridiculous” ad, this new ad frames something other than menstruation as this lady’s biggest problem.

Why are there no female sushi chefs?

anatomy, Menstruation, Sex

As a native of the midwestern U.S., I know very little about sushi. (MuchSushi of it looks like what we call “bait” back in Indiana.) So I did not know that very few women prepare sushi in restaurants. This piece in Toronto Life explains why not:

Women’s hands are too warm to handle raw fish or sushi rice. Their perfume, makeup and lotions interfere with the food. Hormonal fluctuations wreak havoc on delicate Japanese food.

“Hormonal fluctuations” is, of course, a euphemism for menstrual cycle. Fortunately, men’s bodies have no hormonal variation and their hand temperatures are the same as their heart temperatures.

To be fair, the article does acknowledge that the number of women sushi chefs has increased in recent years in the U.S., and even in Japan – once women’s 10 p.m. curfew was lifted.